The Janus Affair: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (37 page)

“Kate,” Eliza said, slowly bringing the electroporter up. The machine’s hum turned into a crackle. “Stand back.”

His colleague’s gauntlet must have hit her far harder than he initially thought. Chandi was having a rough go at catching her breath, let alone looking up. She did manage to do so, and her dusky skin went pale at seeing Eliza raise the final lever and stop at its halfway point.

“Her name was Ihita Pujari,” Eliza spoke evenly, her voice icy cold. “She was a dear friend of mine.”

Chandi’s lips moved, but any sound she made was drowned out by the electroporter after Eliza completed the final circuit.

Bolts danced across the arches and crawled like angry, anxious insects up along the frame. The space around the array rippled and pulsed, causing the air to stir. The smell of electricity overwhelmed them and made Wellington’s eyes water. Louder and louder the hum grew, and then the bridge disappeared in a great flash of white.

Blinking back tears, Wellington pulled himself to his feet, his eyes still looking at where Chandi Culpepper had once been. The air was settling as the generators within the device spun down.

He turned to congratulate Eliza; but instead her name rose to his lips as a warning shout.

It couldn’t have been Chandi appearing behind his colleague; it did, however, look exactly like her. Eliza spun about and barely managed to evade the doppelgänger’s knife Chandi’s twin brandished; but even still, the blade dug deep into her shoulder. With a backhand motion, Eliza used the
plures ornamentum
to slap away her assailant. Then the agent slumped into Mrs. Sheppard’s arms.

Wellington bolted for the two women, as Eliza’s blood seeped onto her fellow New Zealander’s dress. He tore off his lab frock and nicked the hem against one of the
plures ornamentum’s
sharper edges. Once he had torn the fabric, he began binding Eliza’s arm. As he continued wrapping the wound, his mind whispered,
Where is she?
The sister. She should have attacked again by now.

He looked up from his dressing to find Chandi’s sister working the controls frantically. She turned dials, threw switches, and wept as she hammered her palm against button after button.

Wellington could just make out the frantic whispers in between her sobs. “Trajectory. Time. Distance. Reverse polarity. Designate point of origin as destination . . .” she rambled, her voice trailing off as she connected the circuits. The thrumming generators that were now decelerating gave a sharp clack of protest, and then began to rise in volume. “Yes, destination is point of origin . . .”

“She’s . . .” Wellington began, but his voice caught in his throat. He swallowed, and finally looked over to Eliza. “She’s trying to bring her back whilst in transit.”

Eliza understood immediately. “Oh my God.”

Light filled the bridge and clogged their ears with a thick, unnatural silence, the one similar to before . . .

Wellington yanked Mrs. Sheppard down between the two of them as the shock wave passed over. It destroyed glass panels around them and threw everything loose all over the place. The flash subsided, while sparks arced in the machine.

Someone, in amongst the dying generators and odd pops of overloaded instruments, was laughing. Wellington and the ladies looked up to see the two identical, exotic sisters, one still standing at the now useless electroporter controls and the other standing silent under the arcs.

“Chandi,” the twin said, her breath catching in her throat as she cleared the control panel.

The sister in the machine appeared disoriented. No doubt, she would have been confused as she had been transported in a lying position and now she was standing upright. She opened her mouth, and her sister’s name came out with a stream of blood and flesh. “Chandankika . . .”

Wellington swallowed back a bitter taste in his mouth on hearing the wail that came out of her. Chandi vomited up blood as her shoulders suddenly went slack. The knees failed next, collapsing in the opposite direction knees would normally bend. When Chandi hit the deck, Wellington, Eliza, and Kate flinched as one. It did not crumple as a complete body ought to.

Chandankika screamed, and it would be the last sound she would make. The twin’s lament was cut short when a throwing blade embedded itself into her fine, smooth neck.

They turned to see Sophia massaging life into what had been, apparently, a throwing arm.

“Now I know I am sore,” Sophia scoffed. “I was aiming for her skull.”

“You can rest up,” Eliza began, lifting up the
plures ornamentum
in the direction of the Italian, “at the Ministry headquarters. You have a few things to answer for, you bitch.”

Sophia flicked her wrist and a blade appeared in her hand. “A sharp tongue you have there. Perhaps I should remove it?”

“I dare you to try.”

“Ladies!” Wellington snapped. “Might we come up with a more amicable resolution to our differences once we are on God’s green earth?”

The two ladies held their gaze, and to Wellington’s surprise it was Sophia who relented as she lowered her blade. “Before Wellington knocked me out at the wheel, I managed to get us above your comrades for the time being. Perhaps that will avoid any of their artillery.”

“Well done,” Wellington said. “Now let’s see if we can find that communica—”

A wet, thick cough cut him off and made them all turn. Sophia’s aim, it seemed, had indeed been off. Chandi’s double was dying, but not as fast as hoped. Draped over the electroporter’s control panel, Chandankika was unlocking a small black box in the top corner. The housing popped up to reveal a large red button. Sophia threw her knife, sinking the steel into the woman’s eye . . .

. . . after her hand slapped hard against the red button.

The crippled automatons flickered back to life, but remained stationary as Chandi’s voice spoke softly, in unison, from all three, “Auto destruct sequence initiated. Please proceed to the nearest exit.”

“We have to move.” Eliza grunted, her stance not as sure or steady as Wellington was accustomed to. “Now.”

“Quite thorough, those Culpepper girls,” remarked Wellington.

“Then let us not waste time!” Sophia went to the electroporter, removed what appeared to be a transformer from the point where the arcs met, and headed for the closest hatch. “We must get to Engineering. That is where the escape hatches will be.”

Wellington glanced at Eliza who was still a bit weak from the blood loss. She was not happy in following Sophia’s lead.

“I can say without hesitation that I know exactly how you feel, Miss Braun,” Wellington said. “Mrs. Sheppard, follow us.”

“Gladly,” she said.

Sophia, not hindered by a New Zealander draped across her shoulders, was making good speed along the dimly lit footpath between the bridge and the engine room. Occasionally, they would pass an automaton softly counting down. The fact it was Chandi’s voice counting down Wellington found most unsettling.

Not as unsettling, though, as Sophia del Morte who was now closing the heavy iron door between them and Engineering.

“Sophia!” his voice boomed with echo, only to be drowned out by the door latching shut.

“Well, that tears it,” Eliza grunted, pushing Wellington away. Her metallic hand wrapped around the hatch’s wheel. “Welly, you get Kate to safety. This bitch is all mine once we get across this threshold.”

Gears and cogs clicked and whined as Eliza put in whatever remaining strength she had in making the latch give. This time, however, the effort was much greater. Her groan matched the door’s—until it became for her a primal scream. The
plures ornamentum
popped, puffed, and shrieked until finally the locking mechanism failed and the door swung open. With a cry of delight, Eliza led the charge into Engineering.

There were four automatons in sight, all of them standing still.

Over the rumbling of the engines, Chandi’s voice announced through her house servants, “You now have fifteen minutes to reach minimum safe distance.”

Wellington noted the Culpeppers’ house servants were placed at strategic points. The automatons would ignite the boilers and make certain nothing of the airship would remain for salvage of any kind.

Yes, the Culpeppers had been very thorough indeed.

“There!” She pointed to a shaft of white light off to their left.

They only just caught sight of Sophia’s boots clearing the landing before jumping into the vastness of aerospace. An envelope of silk opened into a parachute a moment before she slipped beneath the clouds.

“Bugger!” Eliza swore.

He felt his shoulders drop. Whatever was Sophia thinking?

When he went for the other parachutes, he soon found out.

Sophia’s blade had made quick work of the remaining parachutes. The lifesaving haversacks, all save two, were brandishing gaping holes and deep tears. She had provided an escape—but not for all of them.

“Oh, she wants to make this personal, does she?” Eliza sneered.

“Go.”

Eliza and Wellington turned to Kate. Had she just ordered them to leave her behind?

“Mrs. Sheppard,” Wellington said, “have you forgotten we were here to rescue you?”

“I am well aware of that, Mr. Books, but you need to see the larger picture here.” She dropped a hand on his colleague’s shoulder. “Eliza, you have to carry on the fight for me, as you did back home. You can do this.”

“Kate, no.”

“Child, if today is my turn to die, I would rather do so as a martyr for the movement than as a freakish clockwork doll in need of oiling!” She laughed, in spite of herself. “I need to pass on the torch, and as God as my witness, I need to pass that torch to you. Douglas can make the proper arrangements, and back home you will carry on my legacy.” She placed a hand on her cheek. “Don’t let me die in vain. Promise me that?”

Her friend blinked, her eyes welling up with tears. “I promise you won’t die in vain.”

“Thank you.”

With a grunt, the agent brought her free arm up, clocking Kate soundly in a vulnerable point between her brass jaw and fair New Zealand flesh. The leader of her home’s suffrage movement fell to the deck, unconscious.

“You won’t die, because you’re not staying, Kate. Welly, dress her up.” Eliza winced as she flexed her fingers back and forth. “Dammit, that hurt.”

“That was your wounded arm,” Wellington scolded her as he slipped the parachute on Kate. “So, of course it did!”

“Well I couldn’t punch her with this bloody
plures ornamentum
, now could I?” Eliza said, moving the massive weapon back and forth. “I wanted to knock her out, not break her jaw.” She paused, looking at her unconscious mentor. “Or dent it, as in this case.”

“Does that thing have any sort of quick release, perhaps?” he asked, slipping goggles over Kate’s closed eyes.

“Blackwell says she’s working on it.”

Always the bloody clankertons,
Wellington thought bitterly.

With a final tug, the parachute was secure.

“Right then,” she started, “your tu—”

“Hardly.” Wellington raised a warning finger up to her, then tossing her a pair of aviator goggles. “I’m not leaving here without you.”

He dragged Kate to the open port, grabbed ahold of the rip cord, and let her body fall into the void, her parachute opening mere moments later, clear of the Ministry’s airship. The chute unfurled and Kate’s descent slowed to a safe drift.

Wellington looked around them. If the parachutes were here, there had to be other gear, survival or otherwise, in this section of the ship.

“We really don’t have time to debate the matter.”

“Then I suppose,” Wellington replied, his eyes still looking back and forth between cabinets and crates, “I will finally have the last word with you.”

Where was it? It was standard on airships. The Culpepper sisters were industrious, but they certainly could not have built this airship. Therefore, standards would be in place.

“Wellington Thornhill Books, you bullheaded twit, look at me! I’m worse than a deadweight,” she said, hefting her brass-encased arm.

“That is one thing I would never call you.” His gaze fell on a long crate labeled “Emergency Rescue”—something very familiar from his military days. Opening it, he found a modified rifle loaded with a grappling hook and rope. Quite a bit of rope. “We will manage.”

He glanced out the hatch. The
Blythe Spirit
was closing. He looked at the coil. He would have to make his angle of descent in freefall precise. There was no margin for error.

“Wellington, even if I could make that shot—which I could if I had an arm that wasn’t wounded or heavily armoured—we don’t have enough rope.”

“We have enough rope if we get closer.”

Eliza’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t make that shot.”

“I know you can’t.” Wellington splayed his fingers around the rifle, and then took a step closer. “Do you trust me?”

She went to protest but stopped. He watched her eyes soften, a touch of blush rise in her cheeks. “I—”